Olbia, the ancient Greek colony at the mouth of the Bug River on the Black Sea's northern shore, had an exceptionally long and independent minting tradition — but by the late 1st century BC, the city was under mounting pressure from Scythian raids and the encroaching influence of Mithridates VI of Pontus. These small bronzes belong to a period when Olbia's civic autonomy was real but fragile, squeezed between steppe peoples to the north and Pontic ambitions to the west.
Olbia, the ancient Greek colony at the mouth of the Bug River on the Black Sea's northern shore, had an exceptionally long and independent minting tradition — but by the late 1st century BC, the city was under mounting pressure from Scythian raids and the encroaching influence of Mithridates VI of Pontus. These small bronzes belong to a period when Olbia's civic autonomy was real but fragile, squeezed between steppe peoples to the north and Pontic ambitions to the west.